The Blimps Come Home to Roost for GlobeTel

​Three years ago, this paper presented a story about a Pembroke Pines company with a pie-in-the-sky plan.

GlobeTel wanted to construct a bunch of blimps (pictured, left) that would float around and beam down a torrent of HiDef, five-bars, wham-bam-speedy phone and internet no matter how far you'd roamed outside your coverage area.

It sounded way too good to be true, and it was. This week, ex-GlobeTel CEO Timothy Huff went down in flames, sentenced for his role in the company's massive securities and tax fraud conspiracy.

The New Times story pointed a finger in that direction, reporting that Huff raked in $2.5 million at GlobeTel in 2005 and quoting the company's lawyer making this admission: "It looks just like another little South Florida scam company."

Little if you call $22,600,000 a little bit of cash -- that's how much money Huff and co-conspirator Thomas Y. Jimenez reported in fraudulent revenue.

The scheme centers around the pair inventing a fake stream of incoming cash and selling off nonexistent stocks. Then they failed to report the bogus earnings on their taxes.

Huff got 50 months in jail, followed by three years of supervised release.